Doctors Wedded to Drug Companies

"Physicians say presentations they make are educational, but critics say the practice puts financial rewards ahead of patient care." The L.A. Times on doctors who moonlight as drug reps.

20 October, 2010

"Follow drug company money in Illinois, and it leads to the psychiatry department at Rush University Medical Center, a prominent headache clinic on the North Side of Chicago, a busy suburban urology practice and a psychiatric hospital accused of overmedicating kids. In each of these settings, doctors are drawing an extra paycheck—worth tens of thousands of dollars a year or more—for speaking to other medical professionals about pharmaceutical products at company-sponsored, company-scripted events in Illinois and across the country. The extent of these activities is only now coming to light as drug companies start publicly releasing data about their relationships with physicians."